It took the young priest somewhat longer than it would have taken a man
of Northwick's own language and nation to perceive that his gentlemanly
decorum and grave repose of manner masked a complete ignorance of the
things that interest cultivated people, and that he was merely and
purely a business man, a figment of commercial civilization, with only
the crudest tastes and ambitions outside of the narrow circle of
money-making. He found that he had a pleasure in horses and cattle, and
from hints which Northwick let fall, regarding his life at home, that he
was fond of having a farm and a conservatory with rare plants. But the
flowers were possessions, not passions; he did not speak of them as if
they afforded him any artistic or scientific delight. The young priest
learned that he had put a good deal of money in pictures; but then the
pictures seemed to have become investments, and of the nature of stocks
and bonds. He found that this curious American did not care to read the
English books which Bird offered to lend him out of the little store of
gifts and accidents accumulated in the course of years from bountiful or
forgetful tourists; the books in French Père Étienne proposed to him,
Northwick said he did not know how to read. He showed no liking for
music, except a little for the singing of Bird's niece, Virginie, but
when the priest thought he might care to understand that she sang the
ballads which the first voyagers had brought from France into the
wilderness, or which had sprung out of the joy and sorrow of its hard
life, he saw that the fact said nothing to Northwick, and that it rather
embarrassed him. The American could not take part in any of those
discussions of abstract questions which the priest and the old woodsman
delighted in, and which they sometimes tried to make him share. He
apparently did not know what they meant. It was only when Père Étienne
gave him up as the creature of a civilization too ugly and arid to be
borne, that he began to love him as a brother; when he could make
nothing of Northwick's mind, he conceived the hope of saving his soul.
Père Étienne felt sure that Northwick had a soul, and he had his
misgivings that it was a troubled one. He, too, had heard of the
American defaulter, who has a celebrity of his own in Canada penetrating
to different men with different suggestion, and touching here and there
a pure and unworldly heart, such as Père Étienne bore in his breast,
with commiseration. The young priest did not conceive very clearly of
the make and manner of the crime he suspected the elusive and mysterious
stranger of committing; but he imagined that the great sum of money he
knew him possessed of, was spoil of some sort; and he believed that
Northwick's hesitation to employ it in any way was proof of an uneasy
conscience in its possession. Why had he come to that lonely place in
midwinter with a treasure such as that; and why did he keep the money by
him, instead of putting it in a bank? Père Étienne talked these
questions over with Bird and the doctor, and he could find only one
answer to them. He wondered if he ought not to speak to Northwick, and
delicately offer him the chance to unburden his mind to such a friend as
only a priest could be to such a sinner. But he could not think of any
approach sufficiently delicate. Northwick was not a Catholic, and the
church had no hold upon him. Besides, he had a certain plausibility and
reserve of demeanor that forbade suspicion, as well as the intimacy
necessary to the good which Père Étienne wished to do the lonely and
silent man. Northwick was in those days much occupied with a piece of
writing, which he always locked carefully into his bag when he left his
room, and which he copied in part or in whole again and again, burning
the rejected drafts in the hearth-fire that had now superseded the
stove, and stirring the carbonized paper into ashes, so that no word was
left distinguishable on it.
One day there came up the river a bateau from Tadoussac, bringing the
news that the ice was all out of the St. Lawrence. "It will not be long
time, now," said Bird, "before we begin to see you' countrymen. The
steamboats come to Haha Bay in the last of June."
Northwick responded to the words with no visible sensation. His
sphinx-like reticence vexed Bird more and more, and intolerably deepened
the mystification of his failure to do any of the things with his
capital which Bird had promised himself and his fellow-citizens. He no
longer talked of going to Chicoutimi, that was true, and there was not
the danger of his putting his money into Markham's enterprise there; but
neither did he show any interest or any curiosity concerning Bird's
discovery of the precious metal at Haha Bay. Bird had his delicacy as
well as Père Étienne, and he could not thrust himself upon his guest,
even with the intention of making their joint fortune.
A few days later there came to Père Étienne a letter, which, when he
read it, superseded the interest in Northwick, which Bird felt gnawing
him like a perpetual hunger. It was from the curé at Rimouski, where
Père Étienne's family lived, and it brought word that his mother, who
had been in failing health all winter, could not long survive, and so
greatly desired to see him, that his correspondent had asked their
superior to allow him to replace Père Étienne at Haha Bay, while he came
to visit her. Leave had been given, and Père Étienne might expect his
friend very soon after his letter reached him.
"Where is Rimouski?" Northwick asked, when he found himself alone with
the priest that evening.
"It is on the St. Lawrence. It is the last and first point where the
steamers touch in going and coming between Quebec and Liverpool." Père
Étienne had been weeping, and his heart was softened and emboldened by
the anxiety he felt. "It is my native village--where I lived till I went
to make my studies in the Laval University. It is going home for me.
Perhaps they will let me remain there." He added, by an irresistible
impulse of pity and love, "I wish you were going home, too, Mr.
Warwick!"
"I wish I were!" said Northwick, with a heavy sigh. "But I can't--yet."
"This is a desert for you," Père Étienne pressed on. "I can see that. I
have seen how solitary you are."
"Yes. It's lonesome," Northwick admitted.
"My son," said the young priest to the man who was old enough to be his
father, and he put his hand on Northwick's, where it lay on his knee, as
they sat side by side before the fire, "is there something you could
wish to say to me? Something I might do to help you?"
In a moment all was open between them, and they knew each other's
meaning. "Yes," said Northwick, and he felt the wish to trust in the
priest and to be ruled by him well up like a tide of hot blood from his
heart. It sank back again. This pure soul was too innocent, too unversed
in the world and its ways to know his offence in its right proportion;
to know it as Northwick himself knew it; to be able to account for it
and condone it. The affair, if he could understand it at all, would
shock him; he must blame it as relentlessly as Northwick's own child
would if her love did not save him. With the next word he closed that
which was open between them, a rift in his clouds that heaven itself had
seemed to look through. "I have a letter--a letter that I wish you would
take and mail for me in Rimouski."
"I will take it with great pleasure," said the priest, but he had the
sadness of a deep disappointment in his tone.
Northwick was disappointed, too; almost injured. He had something like a
perception that if Père Étienne had been a coarser, commoner soul, he
could have told him everything, and saved his own soul by the
confession.
About a month after the priest's departure the first steamboat came up
the Saguenay from Quebec. By this time Bird was a desperate man.
Northwick was still there in his house, with all that money which he
would not employ in any way; at once a temptation and a danger if it
should in any manner become known. The wandering poor, who are known to
the piety of the _habitans_ as the Brethren of Christ, were a terror to
Bird, in their visits, when they came by day to receive the charity
which no one denies them; he felt himself bound to keep a watchful eye
on this old Yankee, who was either a rascal or a madman, and perhaps
both, and to see that no harm came to him; and when he heard the tramps
prowling about at night, and feeling for the alms that kind people leave
out-doors for them, he could not sleep. The old hunter neglected his
wild-beast traps, and suffered his affairs to fall into neglect; but it
was not his failing appetite, or his broken sleep alone that wore upon
him. The disappointment with his guest that was spreading through the
community, involved Bird, and he thought his neighbors looked askance at
him: as if they believed he could have moved Northwick to action, if he
would. Northwick could not have moved himself. He was like one benumbed.
He let the days go by, and made no attempt to realize the schemes for
the retrieval of his fortunes that had brought him to that region.
The sound of the steamboat's whistle was a joyful sound to Bird. He rose
and went into Northwick's room. Northwick was awake; he had heard the
whistle, too.
"Now, Mr. Warwick, or what you' name," said Bird, with trembling
eagerness, "that is the boat. I want you take you' money and go hout my
'ouse. Yes, sir. Now! Pack you' things. Don't wait for breakfast. You
get breakfast on board. Go!"